Ben Brust's perfect first half sparks UW to easy victory

Madison – There are times when the dumbest choice anyone can make is to challenge Ben Brust to a game of HORSE.

The first 20 minutes of play Wednesday was classic Brust.

Wisconsin’s senior guard hit his first 4 three-point attempts and his first six shots overall as No. 4 UW built a 20-point halftime lead and remained unbeaten with a 78-52 victory over UW-Milwaukee in front of an announced crowd of 16,987 at the Kohl Center.

Despite getting off to a sloppy start, UW (11-0) matched the best start in school history, set by the 1993-’94 team led by Stu Jackson. A victory Saturday over visiting Eastern Kentucky would give Ryan’s 13th team at UW the school mark.

Brust, who has hit 7 three-pointers twice at UW, scored 16 points in the first half (on 6-of-6 shooting) to help UW build a 45-25 lead and finished with 18 points. He added three rebounds, two assists and a steal in 32 minutes.

He entered the night shooting 41.7% from three-point range and finished 4 of 8 from beyond the arc and 7 of 13 overall. His first miss was a three-pointer 58 seconds into the second half.

Frank Kaminsky added 16 points for UW, which hit 9 of 13 three-pointers (69.2%) in the opening half but hit just 1 of 13 attempts in the second half and finished 10 of 26.

Traevon Jackson and Sam Dekker added 12 points apiece for UW, which shot 50.8% overall (31 of 61) and won the rebound battle, 35-26. Jackson had four assists and two turnovers and Dekker added eight rebounds and a season-high six assists.

Kyle Kelm scored 17 points and Matt Tiby added 11 for UWM (9-3). The Panthers turned the ball over 19 times, however, and UW turned those miscues into 28 points.

UW, coming off an emotional victory over Marquette, looked sloppy early against UWM.

Dekker missed a jumper on the Badgers’ first possession and UW suffered turnovers on its next three possessions.

Kaminsky scored inside, off a feed form Dekker, to give UW its first points, with 16:28 left in the half.
Brust jump-started the offense with the teams tied at 7-7.

The senior guard hit a jumper and followed that with a three-pointer 21 seconds later to give UW a 12-7 lead with 12:57 left in the half.

He grabbed a miss by Duje Dukan and scored and then added back-to-back three-pointers, in a span of 22 seconds.

That gave Brust 13 consecutive points, in a span of four minutes, and helped UW build a 20-9 lead.

The rout continued after UWM pulled with 22-13. Jackson scored six consecutive points to spark a 10-0 run to push the lead to 32-13.

UWM coach Rob Jeter could do little more than call an occasional timeout in an attempt to break UW’s momentum.